Living with contaminated water

STOCKTON - Rogalao Ramirez finds life at the Glenwood Mobile Home Park to be comfortable enough.

Alex Breitler

STOCKTON - Rogalao Ramirez finds life at the Glenwood Mobile Home Park to be comfortable enough.

It's quiet out here in the country. The manager is OK, and there's not a lot of crime.

But there is one catch: "Never drink the water here," 50-year-old Ramirez said.

"Never."

Instead, Ramirez travels a few miles west down Highway 26 to Stockton, where he fills a 4-gallon container for a little more than $1. That's enough for him, his wife, and their sons, ages 16 and 21, to make it through another week.

A well sits only a few feet from Ramirez's trailer, hidden in a plywood enclosure. But tests have uncovered high levels of nitrates in the water, pollution that one expert says might come from fertilizer applied onto nearby farmland.

Digging a new, deeper well might not be a big deal for a city with a multimillion-dollar budget, but in a weathered trailer park occupied by kids on training wheels, field workers and senior citizens on fixed incomes, the money just isn't there.

The state recently released a report finding that public water systems serving 21 million Californians tap groundwater tainted by one or more pollutants. Many larger cities, including those in San Joaquin County, draw water from rivers also, helping to dilute whatever pollutants are drawn up into their wells.

But little places like Glenwood - a community of about 100 people described in state documents as "severely disadvantaged" - are entirely dependent on their tainted underground supply.

And climate change might make California more reliant on groundwater, so contamination there "can have far-reaching consequences" on all of us, the report concludes.

The report by the State Water Resources Control Board, written at the request of state legislators, shines the brightest light onto the south San Joaquin Valley where the contamination is most severe. Kern, Madera and Tulare counties, in the middle of dairy country, had the most number of tainted water systems in California.

But the report shows it's not just a south Valley problem. It claims San Joaquin County has 26 community water systems relying at least in part on contaminated groundwater - eighth most among California counties.

That number appears to be out of date already. Adrienne Ellsaesser, a program coordinator with the San Joaquin County Environmental Health Department, said a number of the local systems mentioned in the report are, in fact, within water quality standards, or have plans to get there soon.

Overall, in San Joaquin County, five water systems are dealing with nitrate problems, while several others grapple with naturally occurring arsenic, Ellsaesser said. That's out of several hundred systems overall.

"We are very fortunate," she said. "Any exceedences we have, we are able to treat it or construct a new well to meet standards."

Glenwood's owner, identified through property records as Ali Aliasgari of San Ramon, is working with the state to seek funding for a new well, she said.

According to state Department of Public Health records, Aliasgari was supposed to drill a new well by June 2011, but asked for an extension because he didn't have the money. The cost was estimated at $50,000.

Until the work is done, Ellsaesser said, Glenwood residents should use bottled water to drink and to cook. Bathing with the tap water is OK.

Back at the park, Ramirez takes her advice to heart, even though he has no way of personally knowing if the water is "good or no good" for his family.

But after 20 years at Glenwood, 66-year-old Barbara Risenhoover will stick with the well water. "I'm still here - still kicking," she said. In general, she's critical of ownership for not investing more money into the park.

Aliasgari, the owner, could not be reached. Ellsaesser, with Environmental Health, said he has been cooperative.

The larger question, from a statewide perspective, is how to deal with the total 265 water systems that deliver contaminated groundwater to customers - in many cases the most vulnerable among us. The Environmental Protection Agency estimates California will need $40 billion over the next two decades to make sure safe drinking water is delivered to homes and businesses.